The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Fortieth Door, by Mary Hastings Bradley

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Title: The Fortieth Door

Author: Mary Hastings Bradley

Release Date: September 19, 2004 [eBook #13498]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FORTIETH DOOR***

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THE FORTIETH DOOR

by

MARY HASTINGS BRADLEY

AUTHOR OF _The Wine of Astonishment_, etc.

1920

TO
ARTHUR MILLS CORWIN

CONTENTS

CHAPTER
I. A RASH PROMISE
II. MASKS AND MASKERS
III. IN THE PASHA'S PALACE
IV. EXPLANATIONS
V. AT THE GARDEN GATE
VI. A SECRET OF THE SANDS
VII. TO McLEAN'S ASTONISHMENT
VIII. TEWFICK RECEIVES
IX. A WEDDING PRESENT
X. THE RECEPTION
XI. THE FORTY DOORS
XII. THE UNINVITED GUEST
XIII. THE BEY RETURNS
XIV. WITHIN THE WALLS
XV. UNDERGROUND
XVI. OUT OF THE DARKNESS
XVII. AZIZA
XVIII. AZIZA IS OFFENDED
XIX. AN INTERRUPTION
XX. BEYOND THE DOOR
XXI. MISS JEFFRIES MAKES A CALL
XXII. FROM THE BAZAARS
XXIII. IN THE DESERT
XXIV. THE TOMB OF A KING
XXV. IN CAIRO
XXVI. THE PAINTED CASE

CHAPTER I

A RASH PROMISE

He didn't want to go. He loathed the very thought of it. Every
flinching nerve in him protested.

A masked ball--a masked ball at a Cairo hotel! Grimacing through
peep-holes, self-conscious advances, flirtations ending in giggles!
Tourists as nuns, tourists as Turks, tourists as God-knows-what, all
preening and peacocking!

Unhappily he gazed upon the girl who was proposing this horror as a
bright delight. She was a very engaging girl--that was the mischief
of it. She stood smiling there in the bright, Egyptian sunshine, gay
confidence in her gray eyes. He hated to shatter that confidence.

And he had done little enough for her during her stay in Cairo. One
tea at the Gezireh Palace Hotel, one trip to the Sultan al Hassan
Mosque, one excursion through the bazaars--not exactly an orgy of
entertainment for a girl from home!

He had evaded climbing the Pyram